


Future Imperfect

by Aegir



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Cyrofreeze was a Stupid Idea, Dystopia, Far Distant Future, Gen, Not Black Panther (2018) Compliant, Not Infinity War compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-25
Updated: 2018-02-25
Packaged: 2019-03-24 02:33:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13801533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aegir/pseuds/Aegir
Summary: A far distant future, a supersoldier and a shield.Or:  how to give the Civil War mid-credits an unhappy coda





	Future Imperfect

**Author's Note:**

> So I wrote this in the first rush of my hatred for the Civil War mid-credits scene, because apparently when I hate something my first impulse is to make it worse.
> 
> Amazingly since then the Infinity War Prelude comic has come out and actually fixed my issues with the scene! Hopefully I will have something happier and based on that ready to post soon, but in the meantime I cleaned this up to get it posted.

The place is a mess.  Shelves collapsed, crates rotted and rusted away, dirt everywhere.  Incredibly some ancient power source responded to Jeva’s fiddling, but the light is a sickly shade.  Pynn rolls his shoulder blades, trying to ease the tension in them.

“Anyone for a junksale?” Jeva kicks casually at a fallen contraption that falls apart beneath her boot.  “This stuff looks pre-interstellar.”

“It is,” the Coman says.  “Some of it anyway.   Looks like someone’s private magpie’s nest of collectibles.”

“Magpie?” says Pynn, but he’s over cut by Filon saying,

“Waste of a detour then.  Well, nothing lost.”

“Maybe not a waste,” says the Coman.  His voice has a wry edge as he goes on “You never know what you’ll find in old storehouses.  And some pre-atomic things are surprisingly durable.”

The members of the troop shift restlessly, they’ll go through the junk if he asks it, but none of them are keen.  The Coman says briskly, “We’ll stay here tonight, it’s better than the open and we can still make the meetpoint if we start early.  Pick yourselves a spot, but stay close.  I’ll check the junk myself.”

“I’ll take watch,” Pynn says, loud enough for everyone to hear.

“First watch,” says the Coman.  “You need sleep, but you don’t have to take it down here.”

They all know Pynn can’t sleep in confined places.  Not since the cell and its ceiling camera, it’s never turned off lights.  But half the troop are walking wounded in ways that have nothing to do with scars on the body, deep marked by torture or ‘re-adjustment’ or just some routine brutality.  Chas can’t remember names, not even his own which is tattooed on his forearm.  Rena has a set of complicated routines for each morning and night.  The Coman’s lips move silently, frequently, that remote stare behind his eyes that’s worn by almost all of them sometime.  They shouldn’t be still fighting, they should have crumbled long ago, but they are here and they are proud of it. 

Pynn heads for the damp stairwell, but halfway there there’s an odd metallic clang that causes him to look around.  The Coman has pulled out a large round disk, made of some kind of grey metal with a few old flecks of paint adhering, and he’s staring at it as though it were some kind of revelation.

“What’s that, an old drum lid?” Filon always has to talk.

“No,” the Coman says, and he throws the disk. 

It spins gracefully above their heads in a curving arc, bounces off the wall, the ceiling, and returns with perfect precision to the Coman who catches it easily. 

“Nice party trick!” says Jeva after a moment’s astonishment, and everyone laughs, except Lio who only laughs when nobody else does, and the Coman, who simply stoops to put the disc against the wall then straightens, with a shake of his uneven shoulders.

As Pynn goes up the steps he hears a song making rude jokes about the Administration start up behind him.  It’s not often there’s a chance to sing in the field, but this place is deep enough below ground for safety.

~~~

_The chamber gaps wide, sending fear right through his marrow.  He has a desperate, childish urge to bawl he’s changed his mind, to turn to Steve and sink into his generosity.  Steve, driven by his sense of guilt and obligation, will stay by him if he asks, and he wants that, wants it badly enough to choke._

_Coward, coward, coward.  He’s brought nothing but harm to Steve in this century, nothing but harm to the world, and the good people who had followed Steve into this fight.  The glimmer of hope there might be some redemption for him, even a place at Steve’s side, had been extinguished in Siberia.  There hadn’t been time to think then, but now there is time he knows Stark was right.  He is a monster, a crazed animal, capable only of harm even when he had sincerely tried to do good.  And crazed animals must be put down or caged._

_T’Challa will keep the cage tightly locked, he understands the need.  Steve will intend at first to return, but his relentless do-gooder drive will pull him back into a better cause soon enough.  Steve has Wilson, and his other friends, and probably that blonde haired agent.  He’ll be fine._

_The cage seals him in, no way out now.  He’d told Steve it wouldn’t hurt.  He’d lied._

_His last clear thought is a sudden longing for that run-down apartment in Romania._

 

James Barnes starts awake.  Around him is quiet, except for two familiar sets of snores.  In front of him, still propped against the wall, the shield. 

There’s no doubt.  There couldn’t be another with that balance.  The shield made by a man he’d murdered, and carried by one he’d hurt in so many ways. 

He can’t take the shield.  It would only get in the way tomorrow.  Shouldn’t take it anyway.  But he runs his flesh and blood fingers around the rim, as though it can tell him whether Steve had ever taken the shield up again.  Surely he had.

It’s stupid, but remembering Steve makes him think he’d really like a hot dog.  This century he’d finally opened his eyes on is a strange place.  Bionic limbs easy for even outlaws to acquire, but there’s no food with any taste, just protein packs. 

Steve would have hated this century.  Bucky does too, if he thinks about it with detachment, which he rarely does.  The grim joke is that he is perfectly suited to this monstrous, twisted era.  It doesn’t matter how ruined he is here.

_Wasn’t this what you really wanted, Barnes?  You didn’t have the guts to end it cleanly.  Wasn’t this what you hoped for, a time when nobody knows the kill codes in your head, when nobody cares about the people you murdered, because everyone who would have cared is dust long ago?  You weren’t making amends, you were looking for a free pass.  And you got it_

 

He lies back down.  Sometimes, when he is on the edge of sleep he feels a small, thin body press against his chest.  He knows it’s all in his damaged mind, that if he opens his eyes there will be nothing there. 

He will bleed out over and over for this battered, ragtag, unbelievably heroic band around him.  Being with them, one of them, is a gift he will never deserve.  But still, when the chance comes, he will press his cheek into the illusion of feather-fine hair, and feel warmed by a ghost.

~~~

Pynn hasn’t seen Capt Rienon before, she is wiry and tough looking with grey-streaked hair.  Coman Barnes has worked under her command before, and the final dispositions are made quickly, the two groups of resistors staging their assault of the compound from different sides.  It falls, not without bloodshed, not without deaths, but it does fall, and Pynn is among the first into the detention block.

They’re all children.  Underweight, fearful kids in thin overalls.  Filon behind him lets out a startled curse, then chokes himself off as the nearer children flinch.

Of course he had known this happened.  Children of those who had displeased the Administration.  Here for ‘readjustment’ at best, experimentation at worst.  But it is the first time he has seen it. 

The Coman takes charge, directing, in a quieter voice than usual, which members should escort the children, which take charge of securing the base.  The children are terrified, some crying, even as the troop does their best to be gentle.  There is not enough time for proper reassurance. 

They have to walk, the base vehicles wouldn’t cover the terrain they need to cross.  Rienan’s group walk with them this time, all hands are needed to shepherd the children. 

It is a good thing they did check out that underground store, because with the kids in tow they need a sheltered place to lie up.  They’ll have to try and find some Outsider community to care for the children, they clearly can’t stay with the resistor groups, although perhaps some with be in their ranks in a few years. 

Coman Barnes has walked the whole way carrying three of the children, one on each hip and one on his back.  They’re all used to the extraordinary feats he can do by now, regard it with a matter-of-factness mingled with gratitude, but today is somehow striking, at least for Pynn.  Even more so, when they are underground the Coman takes the metal disk he had found the night before and begins to spin it, then begins flipping it into arcs with hands and feet.  There are one or two fumbles, it’s true, but they make the children laugh, and when he finally puts the disk down, with a smile broad enough it is almost a grin, most of the children are reassured enough to start to learn the latest round of songs against the administration.  A good day, Pynn thinks. 

Coman Barnes sleeps with two of the children huddled against him that night, and when they leave he carries the metal disk by a couple of roughly rigged straps. 


End file.
